Healing a 2 Year Old's Eczema {Part 2}

So it was just a few weeks ago that I wrote a post about our daughter's eczema(you can read it here).  We started to see such great improvement, and I thought for SURE we would see beautiful soft skin from head to toe in no time!

Well, sadly, that was not the case.  

Just when her skin was about 75% clear, it took a very bad turn.

All the sudden, her back broke out...not patches on her back, her ENTIRE back.  Her back looked and felt like crocodile skin.  There was no smoothness to it whatsoever. 

It was inflamed, red, hot, itchy, and burning.

I've never seen anything like it.  I couldn't really capture it on camera, and here's why.  Her skin was so inflamed and hot that it would blanch with pressure or movement.

Whenever she arched her back at all, you'd see large portions turn white with the pressure of her movement (normally that wouldn't happen, but it was so so inflamed).

So I captured what looks like some angry skin, but nothing like what it actually was.

You can only see the redness on the bottom left of her back...it really was covering it!

The poor thing would just arch in pain.  Nothing really relieved it.  

I lathered on our homemade lotion bars, straight coconut oil, straight lavender essential oil, melaleuca essential oil...nothing seemed to help.

In fact, we used our lotion bars so frequently that I used them all up within a couple weeks!

So I whipped up (literally....with a mixer) a new cream for her without the beeswax....because...I was too lazy to try to tackle that stuff again!  I'll post the tutorial for that cream this week.

The cream soothed her skin momentarily, but absolutely NOTHING helped her when it was so inflamed.  

I would just cry with her after a bath or shower.  The water, regardless of the temperature is very irritating to her skin right now, and like I said...nothing soothed it!

The back of her knees looked like fresh raw skin.  It looked like she had been burned.  It was super painful and she couldn't stop itching them.  The sides of her legs, outside her knees became dry, then hard and crusty.

The back of her knees then became leathery and very very tight.

Her stomach (which was beautifully clear at the time of my last eczema post) started breaking out in patches again as well and was extremely itchy.

The tops of her feet and her ankles looked like they'd been attacked by piranhas. They looked chewed, cracked, and sometimes bleeding.
 
The rest of her legs broke out again into patches that quickly cracked and sometimes bled.

Literally, the only completely clear parts of her body are her bottom, her girly parts, the bottoms of her feet and palms of her hands.

AND to top it all off, her eyelids started itching and hurting!  

I took a look at them, and they were leathery as well.  Poor thing kept rubbing and rubbing them and they started to flake.

Thankfully THAT part only lasted a few days and is better now.  But her forehead is starting to break out and she has dark circles under her eyes....

Which brings me to my next point.

She's not sleeping well.

She is usually a great sleeper...all my kids started sleeping through the night when they were a couple months old (but she was only 5 weeks!).

But she is waking multiple times in the night crying, tossing, turning, itching.  She's not comfortable and she can't rest. 

So she got a laser treatment from our chiropractor and that didn't seem to help this time (it had before).

It's been a nightmare.

So, I finally had it.

I got her an appointment with a holistic pediatrician.

As of today, interestingly enough, the worst part of her flare has improved, but she is still covered in flakes, crusty skin, scabbed skin, red inflamed skin...but not like it was a week ago.

We saw the doc today.
And here's what he thinks.

Yes, she has eczema.

But her current skin reaction is a combination of things right now.

Eczema is most commonly related to issues with the gut. 

If the gut is not digesting and working properly, it will many times show itself in the largest organ of the body...the skin.

This usually should point us to the internal issue so that it can be resolved.  

Instead, it pointed us, at a very young age...to topical steroid treatments.

Not only do the steroids suppress the skin issue that is telling us there is an internal problem, they also suppress the immune system!  So the body doesn't have the ability to fix what it needs to anyway!  Double-edged sword....with a doctor's signature on it :)

So, when we stopped the steroids a few months ago, she flared immediately, like I mentioned in my other post.  

It then got better, and just recently came back worse.

These are actually withdrawal symptoms.  Apparently there is a huge community of people online that are going through what they call "Topical Steroid Withdrawal" together.  You can check out this website to read more.

**BTW, my mom was the one who pointed this out to me last weekend...again.  And she was right...again.

So not only is Noelle's skin going through withdrawals from the steroids, her body is now able to tell us that something is indeed wrong internally.

So it's both!

He believes her gut needs some serious repairing...and it probably has needed it for a long time.

He gave us several homeopathic supplements to assist her gut's healing and gave us some other regimens he wants her to be following daily.

If, by any chance there are other parents reading this and want to know what he gave us, I'll list them real quick.

*Lycopodium Berberis pellets by Uriel - A gut remedy

*Aquilinum Taraxacum pellets by Uriel - Also a gut remedy

*Thuja Thymus comp pellets by Uriel - I think this was an anti-inflammatory

*Apis Belladonna pellets by Uriel - Also anti-inflammatory

*Bioplasma tablets by Hyland's - Restores natural cell function

Other regimens:

*Probiotic with 8-14 species and at least 3-5 billion active cultures/day.

*S. Boulardi yeast supplement with at least 1 billion cultures/day.

*Omega 3 - 500mg/day.  Example: 1 tsp chia seeds or 1 tsp cod liver oil

*Plant based enzyme with each meal to assist digestion

HOLY COW!

A little overwhelming!

But this regimen is designed to really bombard Noelle's gut and system with what it has been lacking for a long time.  

We are praying that this will take stress off her system and her poor little body so that it can heal and she can be her normal self more often :)

He also gave us (well...sold us)two natural topical creams by Uriel as well as calendula ointment.

We are to put all three creams on every day, and our moisturizer on top of those to seal in the therapeutic qualities of the creams as well as hopefully moisturize her poor skin.

So that was today!

And I'm sorry if it was a bit lengthy, but like I said, I always found it helpful to read what other parents were going through.

I really needed a trusted medical opinion on this one though.  I was really tired of guessing and trying to figure out what was going on with her!

I'm glad we went and I would like to document her progress on the blog....even if it's just so that I can look back and see how far we've come!

Please remember to read the disclaimer!
 Disclaimer: I am not a doctor or medical professional.  I simply make decisions on how to care for and improve the health of my own family.  None of the statements on my blog have been evaluated by the FDA and any products mentioned are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.
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